Captains play a key role in helping teams to prove their worth and bring glory to the country. Different things make the captain showcase the domination with some brilliant captaincy across all formats.
Imran Khan helped Pakistan to win the 1992 World Cup while Arjuna Ranatunga helped Sri Lanka win the 1996 World Cup in Lahore. Sourav Ganguly also led India to the finals of the ICC World Cup 2003.
With 1 day remaining, 2023 saw a few captains stand out and help their country win glory making huge strides.
Here we look at the 3 captains of international cricket in 2023:
- Pat Cummins
Pat Cummins deserved all the credit during the 2023 year. Under his captaincy, the Australian cricket team qualified for ICC World Test Championship finals. Pat Cummins and Co register an emphatic win over India in the finals at Kennington Oval, London.
Under his captaincy, the Australia team retained the Ashes after the 4th Test match at Manchester was drawn. Pat Cummins and Co lost the first two matches against India and South Africa in World Cup 2023. After the two losses, the Australian team showed their class by winning all remaining matches.
He played a key role in helping Australia register 3 wicket win as he scored just 12 runs with Glenn Maxwell scoring a brilliant 201. Cummins showed his class with a brilliant 3-wicket haul in the finals against India and helped them to restrict the hosts to a modest total.
- Rohit Sharma
Rohit Sharma played a key role in providing attacking starts in the first 10 overs putting pressure on the bowling departments. The 36-year-old Rohit scored 597 runs from 11 matches with a strike rate of 125.95.
His ability to put pressure on the bowling with positive intent made life tough for the bowlers. Rohit Sharma also played key roles in the semi-finals and finals to provide India with quickfire starts.
He finished as the 2nd leading run scorer in the tournament including 1 century and 3 half-centuries with the best score of 131 against Afghanistan. Under his captaincy, India won the Border Gavaskar Series played in India this year.
- Hashmatullah Shahidi
The Afghanistan captain Hashmatullah Shahidi had a brilliant outing in the ICC World Cup 2023. He played a key role in helping Afghanistan win matches against Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands.
Shahidi was simply outstanding with the bat scoring 310 runs in 9 matches. He showed his class with a superb 80 against India while then scoring match-winning knocks against Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands. Under his captaincy, Afghanistan qualified for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.
It was a superb batting effort by Shahidi as he kept Afghanistan winning 4 matches and gave a tough fight to Australia and South Africa.
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